In this special Thursday edition of Retro TV Friday, we look at 30 years ago today, when Ronald Reagan was first elected president. This was a pretty controversial call by NBC at the time - not because they were calling it for Reagan, who would after all win by a landslide, but because they called it so early - 7:15 Central Time, 45 minutes before the polls would close in Minnesota (which went for Carter, natch), and nearly two hours before they would close on the West Coast. That, and Carter's concession not long after, were for many years a source of great annoyance to Democrats who claimed (probably with some justification) that the early call discouraged some Democrats from voting in local elections, costing them victory in close races. Well, tough nuggets, I say.
Note also that NBC, the first network to use the giant election map, is using blue for Republicans, red for Democrats. (Which, when you think about it, makes a lot more sense. Red always was for leftists, after all.)
John Chancellor does seem to have a hard time believing all this is happening, doesn't he?
